The Phoenix Murders
by lokilette
Summary: In the middle of the 20th century, Great Britain is introduced to a new serial killer: The Phoenix. To the majority of the populace, he's a shadow bent on "freeing" people from their burdens, but Albus Dumbeldore knows the truth about Gellert Grindelwald and is now caught in an endless struggle to stop the man who murdered his sister. Muggle!AU. Rated M for death, violence.
1. A Phoenix is Born

**Warning:** Abuse, death, murder, and probably other stuff. This is a dark fic.

**Author's Note:** Muggle!AU with a crime theme inspired by a sort of Sherlock/Moriarty relationship. I am not a crime writer, but this idea came to me so I thought I would test out my crime writing chops. Inspired by the scholarships for the Hogwarts University Competition.

A huge thank you shout-out to Sociially-Diisoriiented for being an awesome beta on this! I appreciate it, and it's helped smooth some things out, for sure.

Prompts will appear as follows: Chapter 1 "Iridescent" by Linkin Park; Chapter 2 crime; Chapter 3 "Dead To Me" by Simon Curtis; Chapter 4 Jily; Chapter 5 ecstatic; Chapter 6 anxiety; Chapter 7 angst. This will be eight chapters long.

If you leave a review, I will love you forever. :)

**Timeline Shift:** I thought I should make this clear. Because this is Muggle!AU, the timeline's a bit skewed. Since Grindelwald and Dumbledore died when they were 115, I've pushed their births up 30 years, so they would be born around 1911. Riddle and McGonagall were born around 1925. Sirius, James, and Lily were born around 1939 - 1940, so Harry was born in 1960. It's a bit wonky. I blame the Muggles.

* * *

**1921**

"_Let's go." The old man held out a grimy hand, deep lines etched into the palm, puckered skin and dirt-caked nails facing the ground. _

_Gellert paused, turning back to the flames and letting his eyes linger on the red-and-yellow tongues that lapped eagerly at the wooden frame. The screaming had finally stopped. He had imagined his parents would just sort of slip off in their sleep, succumbing to the smoke, but at some point his mother had woken up. Her shrieks, almost unworldly with the way death contorted them, drowned out the roaring of the fire, despite the distance._

"_This is what you wanted, remember?" The voice was soft, like the whisper the flames had made when they got their first taste of wood. "I've set you free."_

**~(X)~**

The house rattled angrily, front door calling out a warning like a siren going off in the night. Before he was even fully awake, Gellert was out of bed and on his feet, scurrying over to the closet. Noiselessly, in slow, deliberate movements, he hoisted himself onto the top shelf, pulling as much junk in front of him as he could so he wouldn't be seen.

The shouting had already begun downstairs, but it was muffled just enough so he couldn't discern any words. It was little more than animated gibberish. He pressed his palms hard against his ears, but the noise still filtered through.

The stairs creaked and groaned as large, incensed feet thundered up them. An instant later, his door was nearly thrown off its hinges, and Gellert held his breath. Time to pretend he didn't exist. He'd had enough practice that he should already be a veritable expert on that subject. Though, some nights it worked better than others.

"Where the hell is your son?" His father's words were slurred and barely intelligible, but it wasn't the words Gellert feared. Even at their meanest, they were nice enough compared to what would happen if he was found.

"I-I d-don't know." His mother's voice was so frail, like it was a piece of glass on the verge of shattering into a million pieces.

"What the hell do ya mean ya don't know? Ain't it your job to know what your son's up to? Goddamn it, I go out and bust my back _all day_ so ya can sit on your fat ass and do what exactly? The house looks like shit, dinner was disgusting, and ya don't even know where your fucking son is."

"I'm sorry. I—"

There was the unmistakable sound of flesh hitting flesh, and his mother's voice dissolved into a soft, pitiful sob. Gellert inhaled sharply and bit his tongue. He remained true to his goal: he did not exist.

After an agonizing silence, his father said, "What the fuck do I care what he does? If we're lucky, he won't turn back up. One less mouth to feed."

The angry slurs and thumping receded back down the stairs, but Gellert remained where he was, immobile, melting into the darkness. How much time passed? Minutes? Hours? Gellert didn't dare move until a stillness settled over the house like a mother hen coming to nest. His father must have passed out.

With a bit of effort, Gellert climbed down from his hiding spot, working the ache out of his muscles, which were protesting the prolonged inactivity. Being cramped in a tight spot didn't help the situation any, either. Pretty soon he would outgrow that hiding place, but Gellert was afraid to imagine what would happen then.

**~(X)~**

Gellert raced through the monochrome fields, trying to outrun the rain. If he got soaked on his way home, he'd stay soggy for hours, and that wasn't an option. The last time that had happened, the water had leeched into his bones, sapping his strength and leaving him weak, pale, and with pneumonia. It wasn't an experience he wanted to relive.

He pressed his treasure firmly against his chest, shielding it with his body. In the event that it did rain, he would have to slip it under his shirt and hope that it afforded some amount of protection. It was far too valuable to risk getting wet.

Before long, the house loomed in the distance. He was going to make it! Gellert threw the front door open and slipped inside just as the sky began to shed fat raindrops over the countryside.

"Oh, you've made it before the rain." His mother was already cooking dinner, wearing her hair over her face to cover the angry, red mark on her cheek. "What have you got there?"

"It's a book, Mother! Look, an honest-to-goodness, real book!"

Gellert held it out for her to see. The binding was coming unraveled, and the pages were dog-eared and torn in places. But it was his, and he was proud of every old, dirty page of it.

"Where did you get a book from?" She held a trembling hand out, stopping with her fingertips just shy of the cover as if it would crumble to dust should she dare to touch it. He knew his mother had loved to read, before her marriage. Before her husband had decreed that women had no use for such things.

"An old man at the park gave it to me. He's always there, sitting on a bench. Said it was so old and he had read it so many times, he didn't want it no more."

"How many times do I have to tell you not to take things from strangers?"

"Yes, but, Mother, it's a _book_."

A smile pulled at the corner of her mouth, and her stern facade began to crack.

"What the hell do _you_ need a book for?" His father swaggered in, and even from across the room the stench of alcohol bowled over Gellert.

Whatever flicker of light had danced in his mother's eyes was extinguished. Gellert had been so preoccupied that he hadn't realized his father was already home. _Stupid, stupid, stupid._

"You're almost old enough to get a job now, an' ya can leave all that learnin' an' nonsense behind you."

Gellert remained silent. He glanced at his mother, but she just looked away.

"Answer when I talk to ya, boy. What are ya gonna do with a book?"

"I-I thought I'd r-read it, s-sir." It was pathetic, the way his voice quivered, but he couldn't seem to steady it, regardless of how hard he tried.

"Read? You're so damn stupid, I doubt ya even know how. Give it here."

Before Gellert could react, the book was yanked from his grasp. He scrambled to reclaim it, but all he received for his efforts was a jolt of pain as he was knocked backwards. Tentatively, he raised his fingers to his cheek. The skin tingled, and it was already hot to the touch. He knew what his father was planning, and he couldn't let it happen. He steadied himself in preparation for a second attempt.

"No! That's mine!" He lurched for the book again and was sent sprawling this time. The brunt of the fall was absorbed by his spine, sending waves of pain tearing through his body.

"Look what it's done already. Made ya forget who's in charge. I'm putting an end to it."

By the time Gellert managed to push himself into a seated position, his father had already pitched the book—his book—into the fireplace. The tongues gobbled it up greedily, roaring as if they were laughing at him.

Something sparked inside his gut, scorching, burning: hatred. It flooded him with a warmth that boiled his blood and singed his soul.

In a flash, he was out the door and back out in the downpour. No one tried to stop him. Gellert was numb to the biting rain and the insidious cold. If he was lucky, this time pneumonia would take him and be done with it.

He wasn't sure where he would go, but after a while, he stumbled into the park. It was deserted; most people were probably home eating dinner with their families by now—if they had one, anyway. He found an abandoned bench and collapsed on it, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. Time passed—minutes, hours, days, who knew how long—but the rain never stopped and he never moved. Eventually, the old man showed up, like always, groaning as he coaxed his body to sit.

"Your book—I'm sorry," Gellert whispered.

"Oh? Did it get wet?" His tone was unaffected; he seemed unconcerned by the tragic fate of the book he had gifted to the boy. The man was always perched on the bench at least once a day, watching the world move around him, but Gellert had rarely talked to him.

"No." A whirlwind of emotions surged inside him, and the more he tried to capture the words, the more the fire burned in his gut. He clenched his hands, fighting against the anger and the cold that involuntarily made his body shiver. All he could manage to squeeze out was, "I hate him."

"Hate is an awfully strong word, son. You shouldn't use it lightly."

"I'm not. I hate him! I hate him, I hate him, I hate him!" His voice broke, and he clenched his jaw to bite off the rest, forcing the ache in his face upward where it blossomed into a full-fledged headache. "I wish—I wish he were dead."

The man looked sideways at him, as though he was summing him up in one glance. Gellert could see him out of the corner of his eye, but he kept his gaze trained at the ground.

"You really want that, don't you, son?"

"Yes." And he did. With every fiber of his being, he did. But he had to go back there—to that house, to those people. He had nowhere else to go. There was no way for him to ever truly be free.

**~(X)~**

Gellert realized, as soon as his back touched the wall, that he had made a grave mistake in letting himself be forced into a corner. Such a foolish blunder, one he would pay for dearly. His father was close now, too close, and the fetor of alcohol on his breath made Gellert gag.

"I heard ya been dodging work, ya lousy, good-for-nothing son of a bitch!"

The first blow came, and, even though he was expecting it, his knees quivered and his eyes watered. The belt snapped a second time, laying open the skin on his leg in a long, angry line that immediately began to ooze blood.

Of course Gellert had shirked work; he had practically said as much when his father insisted on pulling him out of school to take a place in the factory. Not in so many words, of course—he wasn't stupid enough to egg his father on—but it had been implied. He had no intention of wasting his life slaving away for nothing like his father. He wanted to be somebody.

The sharp crack of the belt sounded again, but Gellert could barely hear it over the whoosh of his pulse in his ears as he clenched his jaw. _I will not cry. I will not scream._ The effort of bottling everything in made his whole body shake as the belt snapped again and again. A small sound slipped out, and he cursed himself for being so weak and giving his father the satisfaction.

Every inch of his body ached, but he couldn't tell if it was from the beating or from the effort it took to not give in to the mind-numbing pain or the blackness that threatened to pull him under.

Gellert looked over to his mother, whose face was blanched white, hand shaking as she held it over her mouth to stifle whatever words nipped at her lips. When she caught him looking, she averted her gaze, but he knew that they were thinking the same thing.

_Why won't anyone save me?_

**~(X)~**

"I could run away, y'know." Gellert kicked his legs off the park bench, one at a time, back and forth, left then right. He leaned forward in his seat to give them more momentum. It hurt, but he found comfort in that. At least he could still feel something at all.

"Wouldn't your parents be upset?" The old man's voice was soft, like it always was, and barren like the desert. It neither jumped nor plummeted but constantly walked the same, narrow line.

"No." Gellert scoffed, kicking harder. "My father wouldn't even care. He's too drunk and stupid to notice."

"And your mother?"

"Who knows?" There was a trace of guilt that knitted its way through his chest, but he quickly suppressed it. Whatever choices she had made were hers to live with. It wasn't his fault that her decisions led her down a long, destructive road.

"Tell me, is that really what you want, son? You truly want your parents out of the picture?"

Gellert hesitated, just for a moment, because his parents were all he had known, in all of his ten years. But what had they ever done for him except tear him down? If he stayed, he would live forever in the same festering hellhole that bred hatred and stupidity. Each day that passed would chisel away any and all hopes of a future he ever harbored. In order to survive, he would have to let them go.

"I'm sure."

"Where will you go?"

"Somewhere. Anywhere. It doesn't matter."

"I understand. You just want to be free, right?"

"Yes."

The man carefully pulled something out of his pocket, plastic crinkling with the effort. He extricated a single candy and held it out.

"Lemon sherbet?"

"Thank you." Gellert took it gingerly, like it was worth all the gold in the world. He could count on one hand the number of times he had been offered candy, and several had taken place in that very park with that same man. The treat was truly something to be savored, and he afforded it all the reverence it deserved, rolling it slowly around his tongue.

"Not everyone wants what they say. Freedom isn't always what it's made out to be. I freed a girl once from the boys that tormented her—three of them—but I could not free her from the demons that plagued her. Not everyone can handle freedom."

"I can handle it. I want—No, I need to be free."

**~(X)~**

_Gellert slipped his hand into the older man's, an eerie sense of tranquility overtaking him as strong fingers gripped it tight. He walked away from the smoldering ashes that remained of his life, vowing to never look back. He had become a phoenix._


	2. A Bird Learns to Fly

**Author's Note:** I thought I should make this clear. Because this is Muggle!AU, the timeline's a bit skewed. Since Grindelwald and Dumbledore died when they were 115, I've pushed their births up 30 years, so they would be born around 1911. Riddle and McGonagall were born around 1925. Sirius, James, and Lily were born around 1939 - 1940, so Harry was born in 1960. It's a bit wonky. I blame the Muggles.

Also, the fluffy bits are dedicated, of course, to Gitana del Sol, who had to suffer through my fangirling. :)

**1930**

"_You still haven't had a chance to meet the Dumbledores yet, have you? I would think you'd have had time, with how much time you've spent skulking around this week, but maybe not."_

"_I don't skulk, Auntie." Gellert did his best to keep the drone of boredom from seeping into his tone. A pin-prick of pain had started pulsating somewhere behind his forehead, and the more she talked, the more momentum it gained._

_Godric's Hollow. Such a garish name, though it suited the quaint, hole-in-the-wall village. Few people lived there, and even less cared to visit. His great aunt afforded him an excuse to be there, a roof over his head, and some food, but he couldn't care less about Batty Bathilda. No, he had a mission, and that was his sole concern._

"_They're a bit of an odd bunch," she continued, as if he'd never said anything. "Keep to themselves a lot. But the oldest boy, Albus, is right about your age. I'll have to introduce you."_

_Her assessment of her neighbors left much to be desired. As far as Gellert was concerned, the Dumbledores were quite a fascinating family. He had lurked in the shadows like a thief, stealing snippets of conversations. It was amazing, the sorts of things people would confess to when they thought no one was listening._

_Absentee father, carted off for the murder of three boys and never heard from again. No one bothered looking; he was presumed dead. Recently deceased mother, murdered by her daughter in an outburst of pent-up aggression. The youngest child was a secret, a girl with some obvious mental deficiencies whose implication in her mother's death was swept under the rug by her brothers. The middle child was an oafish boy—quick with anger, slow with wit—who spent an unhealthy amount of time with a particular goat. And the oldest boy..._

"_Flamel's fortune! There's Albus now. Well, no sense in putting this off. Albus!" The old bat waved her hand frantically to flag him down. "Albus, be a dear and come here right quick. There's someone you should meet."_

_The eldest Dumbledore was a fine specimen of a man. His hair fell around his long face like a mane of fire, lit by sunlight, as he approached them. He had certainly been afforded all the handsomeness that accompanied youth and possessed both a remarkable stock of arrogance and enough wit to justify it._

"_Albus, I'd like you to meet my great-nephew, Gellert Grindelwald. He'll be staying with me for the summer. Gellert, this is—"_

"_Albus Dumbledore. I've heard a lot about how brilliant you are." Gellert extended his hand and offered a small smile._

"_Really? I'm afraid to say, I've never heard of you before in my life." Albus' grip was strong as they shook hands, and in that moment, they shared a lifetime's worth of conversations. The pressure built up, neither of them wanting to be outdone, until, finally, they released their grips simultaneously._

"_Yes, well, some people don't feel the need to flaunt their accomplishments. I assume you're familiar with the idea of humility?"_

_The comment earned him a brief tongue-lashing from his great-aunt about the proper etiquette for meeting someone, or at least that was the gist of it. Gellert didn't catch every word. He was focused, instead, at the faintest ghost of a smile that played at the ends of those thin lips. There was a twinkle in those sapphire eyes that was reminiscent of the old man he had met at the park nearly a decade ago._

_His instincts had been precise; Albus was everything Gellert had hoped he would be and then some._

**~(X)~**

Albus wasn't sure what to make of Gellert Grindelwald. He wasn't thrilled with having the man's crazy great-aunt as a neighbor in the first place, what with her nosy habits. The woman was like a blood hound, sniffing out juicy tidbits of gossip. She was little more than a nuisance, but her great-nephew...Well, that remained to be seen.

He certainly appeared to be from a different ilk than the typical Godric's Hollow resident, not that there were many left in this godforsaken hellhole. The smart ones got out when they had a chance, and the rest were content with wasting away their miserable existence as the world passed them by.

But this Grindelwald—he had come here, of all places, willingly. Eagerly, almost. It was irrational, especially when Albus himself would give anything for the opportunity to escape. He had turned down an invitation to study at Oxford purely out of necessity, but he would leave it all behind in a heartbeat if the opportunity presented itself.

That meant this Grindelwald character was either a dunce or a nutter. The only way to know for sure would be to test his motives. Regardless, Albus was certain there was more to the brooding blond than simply an altruistic need to check up on a distant relative.

**~(X)~**

Albus went round to the Bagshot residence the next day to offer Gellert a proper tour of the village. It was a good excuse to escape his house for a while, at least, and Gellert appeared to be equally eager to rid himself of his great-aunt. To that extent, at the very least, he appeared to be a perfectly rational man.

The rainy season had ended, so the day was warm and calm. They had that much in their favor as they took to the road that traversed the hollow. The dirt and stones crunched under their weight. They didn't bother actually stopping to look at things along the way. It was obvious that a disinterest in Godric's Hollow was something they had in common.

"So, where are you from?" Albus asked.

"A little bit of everywhere, I suppose. I've done a lot of traveling the past several years. But I dare say what you meant to ask is why I'm here. I'll be starting Cambridge this fall, and seeing as how my great-aunt is funding part of my education, I thought it only proper to thank her in person."

"Cambridge? What ever would you want to go there for?"

"It's really the only suitable institution in the country."

"Hardly. Everyone knows Oxford is the place to be."

Gellert scoffed. "Sure, if you don't mind being a couple years behind in what you're learning."

Gellert glanced sideways at him, and when their eyes met, Albus' soul shuddered. He wasn't sure exactly what caused it. Perhaps it was the fear-inducing, earth-shattering revelation that someone else was capable of reading every second of his life and deciphering the intent. Maybe it was the ego-bruising recognition that he could no longer claim a superiority that had always come naturally but, instead, that he would have to earn it. In the end, Albus decided it was all that and then some; he had finally found someone he could consider an equal.

"I assume, then, that you're going to Oxford this year," Gellert said. It wasn't exactly a question, but Albus decided to address it as one.

"I was. Figured I'd spend a year traveling and then start my studies, but..."

"But?"

Albus could feel those steely eyes boring holes through his facade without even looking. When had the conversation turned back to him, anyway? He had to remember to keep his wits about him. This wasn't one of the normal pea-brained peasants he dealt with. Even a little slip and he could easily say too much.

"Well, things came up," he said with a shrug.

Gellert seemed content with that answer, and they lapsed into silence as they made their way to the chapel at the end of Church Lane.

"Really not much here to see, is there?" Gellert asked as he took a seat on the top step, just before the door of the church.

"No. Some cottages, a couple shops, a shoddy pub that residents use as an excuse to remain perpetually drunk."

"And a church." Gellert flashed a small grin as he threw his thumb over his shoulder to motion towards the building behind him.

"Ah, yes, of course. And a church."

Their conversation was interrupted when a screech of "Albus Dumbledore!" broke through the silence of the hollow. A slight prick of pain began to throb in the front of his head. Aberforth was at it again. God, he was such a brash, annoying teenager. Albus wished that, _just once_, he would consider the consequences rather than firing off the first thought that popped into that tiny, little brain of his.

Sure enough, when Albus turned to look, there was Mrs. Abbott stamping her way up Church Lane, towing Aberforth along by the ear. It was incredible that he didn't have an elongated ear by now, with how often he was dragged around by it.

Mrs. Abbott had hiked up the front of her forest-green dress with her spare hand, but the back of it still trailed the dirt, leaving a swirling cloud of dust in her wake. The black feather in her silk-trimmed, straw hat pitched and bobbed angrily as she approached.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Abbott. You're looking quite lovely today," Albus said with a smile.

"None of that now, Albus. You won't placate me so easily. Not this time. You'll never guess what your brother's been up to."

Albus wasn't so sure of that. No, he was fairly certain he'd be able to guess it. His brother wasn't particularly creative, and there were already numerous theories fluttering around his brain. That was obviously not her actual intention, though, so he simply said, "Oh? What's he done now?"

"I caught your brother throwing _goat dung_ at people as they were leaving the pub!" She yanked hard on the ear in her left hand, and Aberforth winced but remained silent. At least he had that much sense.

"I apologize for my brother, Mrs. Abbott, but—"

He was cut short as Gellert started to chuckle. Very soft, very boyish, and far too short-lived. Albus almost wished he'd continued.

"You find this amusing?" Mrs. Abbott snapped, turning her hawkish stare on him. He seemed largely unaffected by her attempts at intimidation.

"Perish the thought, ma'am. There is nothing at all funny about a boy disrespcting his elders."

"Then why are you laughing?"

"Forgive me for my rudeness. I couldn't help but think that they would have truly been shit-faced, in every meaning of the term."

Mrs. Abbott's frown quivered, a smirk threatening to break her stern countenance. She managed to regain her composure before that happened, but when she spoke again, her words had lost their bite.

"Yes, well, I'll leave him in your care, Albus, and I trust you can handle the situation?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Fine then." With a huff and a flurry of fabric, she stormed back down Church Lane.

"Aberforth—" Albus began, but his brother simply crossed his arms and looked away.

"Don't bother. I don't wanna hear it."

"Of course you don't, because you hear it almost every day! You think I'm not tired of saying it? Jesus Christ, I know you're not nearly as stupid as you look, which is lucky for you because you sure looked like a damned fool being dragged around by your ear."

"What are you even doing here, anyway? Shouldn't you be at home?"

"She's not a child anymore. I don't need to spend every minute playing mama bird to her. I have a life, too. And where were you? Out playing with shit. Please, Aberforth, spare me the lectures."

Albus started when Gellert cleared his throat from a few feet away, having completely forgotten the other man was there.

"I should be on my way. I suppose Auntie will be expecting me, and it looks like you have family matters to attend to. It's been a lovely chat, Albus," he said, nodding his head ever-so-slightly. "We should do it again sometime. Take care, for now."

Gellert was down the church steps and already striding along Church Lane before Albus could even utter a word. It wasn't a question. He seemed to have a rather bad habit of doing that. What was even more frustrating was that of course he would call on Gellert again. He had to. Intelligent conversation was in short supply in Godric's Hollow, and there was no way he'd let the chance slip through his fingers. Not with everything else he'd been forced to give up.

"Let's go home. Don't." Albus shook his head as Aberforth opened his mouth, presumably to argue. "Let's just go home. Together."

Aberforth trailed several meters behind him the whole walk to the house, dragging along like a dog on a chain. How foolish they must look! The residents of Godric's Hollow pitied them—the poor, orphaned Dumbledores. The look in their eyes made bile rise in his throat—judging them like an old work horse that no one had the heart to put down.

God, what must Gellert think after witnessing that outburst? Albus knew he shouldn't care about the newcomer's perspective. A wave of warmth filled his body, causing his cheeks to tingle. He had to admit, infuriating though it was, that he did very much care what the winsome stranger's opinion of him was. A fresh wave of anger washed over him, but he swallowed his bitter words as they approached the house.

"Look now, it's still in one piece," he called over his shoulder. Aberforth simply huffed, but Albus noted the relief that softened his features and unknitted his brows. His brother never was good at hiding his emotions, whatever they were.

Aberforth rushed ahead of him, slamming the door open and calling out, "Ariana! We're home! Where have you gotten yourself to now?"

He rushed off to another room, and Albus took the liberty of closing the door behind them. They did not live in a barn, but it was no use trying to impress that on his brother. Aberforth probably would've been happier if they did. Albus swept his eyes around the living room, surveying every inch of it. Everything was in order. She had been well-behaved while they were gone. That was a relief, at the very least.

He followed the sound of Aberforth's voice into the small room in the back that had been a study in its former life. Now, it was simply an amalgamation of things they weren't quite ready to get rid of and had nowhere else to put. His brother and sister were on the floor, bent over papers that were decorated with ink scribbles.

"Oh, you sure have been busy while we were gone, haven't you?" Aberforth was saying when he walked in. "They're all beautiful." Ariana handed him a piece of paper and offered him a meek smile. "Yes, yes, this one especially. Uh, what is it?" Ariana furrowed her brow at him and pulled her thin lips down into a pout. "Kidding. Just kidding. Of course this is a bunny sitting on a log having a lovely conversation with the snake in this here tree, right?" Aberforth glanced at Ariana's face and shook his head slowly. "No? Well, it's still lovely, just the same."

Albus caught himself smiling, before he was able to stop it. Despite all of his brother's shortcomings, and there were many, Aberforth was an exceptional caregiver. It was something that Albus had neither the patience nor desire for, so it was doubly remarkable, the amount of care his brother afforded Ariana.

"What about this one?"

Ariana snatched the paper from Aberforth before he could pick it up and get a proper look at it. She shuffled over to stand before Albus and held it out to him.

"Oh? Is this one for me?"

She nodded, her lips entertaining the slightest smile.

In the drawing, there were three figures standing in front of their house. Just three. That was their family now. How quickly their mother was forgotten. He wondered, for just a second, if she even understood what she had done and if she regretted it. When he looked up from the paper and into her innocent, expectant face, he concluded that she did not.

"This is a lovely portrait of our family, Ariana," he said, and she beamed with pride.

"Why don't we go put on some tea?" Aberforth announced, laying a hand on Ariana's arm to guide her out of the room. "I suppose Albus can handle dinner, and, if we're lucky, maybe tonight he won't cook it until it's an unrecognizable, black heap of tar."

Albus scoffed, but he let his brother slip past without an argument. In all honesty, he was an exceptionally lousy cook. Besides, they were all still reeling from the hand they had been dealt. It wasn't their fault, the situation they were in, and part of the blame rested on his shoulders, too. After all, Aberforth had volunteered to become Ariana's caregiver, but Albus had insisted on his brother finishing school.

Three years stuck here, of all places, would feel like an eternity, but it wasn't like his wit would magically deteriorate in that time. In three years, Albus could still pursue his goals. A bit later in life, perhaps, than he intended, and maybe slightly more drained. Nevertheless, family was still family.

**~(X)~**

For several weeks now they had been consorting in the graveyard, the one place in town that everyone else refused to go, and it afforded them quite a bit of privacy. Gellert was everything he had hoped he would be and then some.

"Surely you, of all people, can picture it, can't you, Albus?" Gellert was saying as he paced back and forth among the tombstones.

Picture it? No, Albus couldn't picture the future; he was far too caught up in the present. The setting sun rested on the horizon like a halo just above those golden curls, making his companion little more than an ethereal shadow in the growing twilight. Those steely eyes sparked to life, reflecting the light of a hundred dreams as if they were fractals off a gemstone. The way that voice lilted and dipped, animated by his conviction, stirred his soul. Society would never accept the way that he felt, but was love ever truly wrong?

"It's not that simple, Gellert. You'll never manage to dethrone King George. England has always been a monarchy and always will be. Change, in that regard, has always proved futile."

"That's the beauty of it. I'm not proposing overthrowing anyone. Political coups are messy business. Quite out of my league. I'm talking about a social revolution." There was a fire in his tone that engulfed his words, and Albus quite liked it. It was invigorating, intoxicating. "Imagine, Albus," Gellert lowered onto a tombstone just in front of Albus, resting lightly on the top of it, "a society led by _capable_ people. Not just the nitwits and ninnies that erroneously believe they know a thing or two. Real intellectuals, the best of society, regardless of their class."

"It sounds brilliant, but it'll never happen."

Gellert straightened up slowly, lips transfiguring into a crooked half-smile. Albus had come to know that look well; he was about to be told exactly why he was wrong.

"Of course it can happen. People who are capable of thinking for themselves simply need to be reminded how, is all. They've forgotten, you see, because society says that they shouldn't think. Society says go to work, have a family, inherit your responsibilities. People like us, truly brilliant people, all they need is a little nudge in the right direction. If you free them from the burden society places on them, imagine what such a person could become. Unrestrained. Unfettered. Free to be whoever he wants to be."

Albus was no stranger to burden. In fact, disconcertingly enough, they appeared to have become strange bedfellows, an unwilling ally that he found he couldn't rid himself of. There were others out there like him. There had to be. Other people who could aspire to greatness, who could rise even out of the dredges of society.

"We'll be like benefactors then?"

"Of course. We'll show them just how far their intellect can take them. We can do it together, Albus, you and I. We'll make an excellent pair." As he spoke, Gellert closed the gap between them slowly, step by step.

Albus' heart raced, and no amount of concentration would steady it. His palms were damp with sweat, and he buried them in the pockets of his pants so they wouldn't give him away. They had spent the afternoon talking, always with a couple tombs between them, but now...

Another step closer. Then another. What was he playing at? Albus sought an answer in Gellert's eyes, but he was forced to look away. He withered under the powerful scrutiny of that hawkish gaze, melting into the subtle softness in which he was being regarded. Like he was the only person in the world that mattered; like he was the only person in the world.

Two more steps, until they were toe to toe. Albus instinctively leaned back, only to find a tree trunk blocking his escape. There was nowhere to go now, with Gellert so close that he could smell his aftershave—a sort of sugary-sweet aroma that made his mind swim. No, it was wrong. What if someone saw them? What would they think? What...would...

As Gellert leaned closer, resting one palm on the tree to steady himself and leaving the other tucked neatly behind his back, Albus realized that he wanted this far more than he cared about what anyone in Godric's Hollow thought. A slight tickle crawled up his neck and across his cheeks. He figured he looked rather ridiculous, a grown man acting like a blushing schoolgirl. His cheeks must have been the same deep shade of red as his hair, but there was nothing he could do to stop it as the heat crept the rest of the way up his face.

"We can have the world, Albus," Gellert whispered in his ear, and the soft vibrations made his knees tremble. "We can make it anything we want it to be. We'll do it together, you and I. Always together."

_Yes_, he wanted to say. _Always._ Their bodies were so close now, and the heat that arced between them was almost unbearable. Albus was sure he was being engulfed by flames. They weren't touching, not yet, but if he moved forward just a little, the tiniest step...

Before Albus could do anything, someone was at the gate of the cemetery calling his name. Lucky for them, they were tucked away from view toward the back of the plot, buried in the foliage where no one would be able to see.

"What do you want now, Aberforth?" Albus called back, not bothering to try to hide his annoyance.

"The sun's almost down."

"You know? I was just starting to wonder why it was getting so dark. I suppose that explains it. Thank goodness you were here."

There was a short pause and then, "I could use your help at home."

"I'm sure you can handle whatever it is. I have faith in your abilities."

"Do you really think I'd be here if it was that simple?"

"Your sister needs you," Gellert whispered, almost apologetically. The warmth receded as he took a step back, and Albus choked back the groan that threatened to spill out. He was right—damn it, he was right—but, just once, Albus wanted him to be wrong.

He steadied himself, steeling his emotions the best he could. "Yes, I should go."

Albus pulled away, casting his eyes downward. He couldn't bear to look at Gellert, knowing that he had to walk away. He was overwhelmed with both anger and defeat, like a bird with clipped wings. At this rate, he would never know what it was like to fly.

**~(X)~**

Gellert was on the front steps, ready for their promenade around the cemetery like every other day that summer, and Albus was already out the door, eager to rid himself of his family for a spell. But it wasn't that easy. It never was.

Aberforth was right behind them, calling after him, "You're leaving? Again? Now?"

"You'll be fine, Aberforth. You can handle it," Albus assured him, sweeping his hair quickly into a tail and securing it out of his face.

"Look, I don't know what you two are planning, wandering about all day..."

"That's none of your concern," Gellert interjected calmly.

Aberforth ignored him, his voice rising as he spoke, trembling slightly with anger. "You can't take her with you, you know. Whatever you have in mind, you can't drag her around Europe with you like spare baggage. So what are you gonna do, just leave her behind? She needs you here, Albus. She's your sister, too."

A wave of frustration boiled up in his gut. Of course Albus knew that he was responsible for Ariana, but that didn't mean he was willing to sacrifice his future forever. Before he could muster the proper words, Gellert cut in.

"I suppose you'd have him just give up his future for your sake." Gellert's tone was still as smooth and even as ever, which seemed to enrage Aberforth all the more. "You want him to just stay here and waste away like the rest of you? Perhaps you hide your jealousy beneath a claim of love?"

"What do you even know?" Aberforth was shouting now, his whole body shaking, fists clenching and unclenching as he stepped towards Gellert.

Albus stepped between them. "Aberforth, this is not the time-"

His brother ignored him and continued, "Ever since you got here, he's done nothing but run off every day. This is _your_ fault."

"Maybe it is, but all I'm trying to do is save him."

Albus turned from his brother to address his best friend, who seemed to almost have forgotten he was there at all.

"Gellert, I don't think-"

Once again, his objections fell on deaf ears as his brother said, "From what? His family?"

"Yes."

Aberforth lurched towards Gellert, who was both bigger and faster than the fifteen-year-old. The blond easily side-stepped the first punch, landing his own blow squarely on Aberforth's cheek and sending him sprawling. The oaf, who was too stubborn for his own good, was back on his feet in a flash and ready for round two, but Albus threw himself between them.

"This isn't going to solve anything," he shouted over Aberforth's loud growls and Gellert's rolling laugh. He pushed back against his brother's shoulders as the teen attempted to claw a way around him.

The fight was quelled by the sound of flatware shattering and furniture being upturned. Before he could think about what he was doing, Albus had released his brother and sprinted to the door with Aberforth only a step or two behind him. The house was a mess. In the few minutes they were outside, Ariana had succeeded in tearing the living room apart, but she was nowhere to be seen.

"Here, Albus! She's here," Aberforth called from the other side of the room, where he was kneeling on the floor.

Albus vaulted over the upended sofa, stopping beside his brother. His heart stopped the moment his eyes landed on her porcelain features, embalmed forever like a perfect doll. The only trace of color was a ruby-red trickle running from the corner of her mouth.

"I don't think she's breathing, Albus." Aberforth's voice was high-pitched and wobbled more as realization slowly set in. He always was a slow child. "Albus, she's not breathing!"

Ariana's brown eyes were frozen open, glassed over like two perfect marbles. Unseeing, but not unaccusing. A few feet away was a tea cup, still dripping a sour-smelling, dark liquid. The cabinet was ajar, and Albus imagined that if he cared to check, he would find the bottle of turpentine diminished.

Poison. She drank poison. And now she was dead. His sister...was dead. The words were there, but they felt detached, somehow, like they were a part of someone else's world but not his. They didn't belong to him, and he didn't belong to that house, or the boy that was stretched out on the floor sobbing hysterically, or the girl who was growing colder by the second.

Albus looked around for Gellert, but the man was nowhere to be found. As his gut twisted into a hard, painful ball, Albus realized that everything was his fault.

**~(X)~**

"This is all your fault, you bastard!" The pain came all at once like a clap of thunder, a searing flash of white that blinded him. Something warm ran down his face, and Albus let it flow freely. "She trusted you! She _needed _you!"

One of the funeral-goers dragged Aberforth off of him, but Albus almost wished they would've let his brother pummel him forever. Physical pain, at least, was something he could still relate to; inside him was a black hole that had swallowed up the rest of his ability to feel. He didn't even try to stop the bleeding.

Then Mrs. Abbott was leaning over him, dabbing his face with a handkerchief, regardless of how many times he insisted that all he wanted was for her to stop nagging him.

"That'll need to be looked at, dear. I'm afraid it's broken."

"Later," Albus insisted, waving her away. _Later._

He remained there long after everyone else had drifted back to their lives. Aberforth left without so much as a word. In one fell swoop, he had lost all the family he had, and it was harder to let go than Albus ever imagined it would be.

The cemetery was still in the gray twilight, and he felt comforted, almost, sitting there among all the dead, after all the time he'd spent in the cemetery that summer. It felt natural. Who was to blame? Him, for not being attentive enough and secretly wishing to be free? Aberforth, for starting fights rather than watching his sister? Gellert? Ariana had never showed an interest in drinking unknown, potentially dangerous substances, so where had the idea come from? Could it be that Gellert...

Albus was so wrapped up in a tapestry of remorse that he never even heard the man approach until he was standing just a few feet away. Albus let his eyes trail up the familiar body from the shined shoes to the clean, pressed suit, to the slicked-back, blond curls. The fading sun still cast a halo over his head, even after everything.

"Get up, Albus."

When he didn't immediately comply, Gellert reached a hand down and pulled him to his feet. There was so much he wanted to say, but his tongue was too clumsy to get it right.

"We're here again," Gellert said lightly, the words dancing like the evening wind. "Alone. Just you and I."

He stepped closer, and this time Albus simply didn't have the strength to fend him off. His heart raced, the tempo growing as the distance between them shrunk. Their eyes met, and he felt the fire. It would always be like this, he concluded. As long as Gellert was around, he would always get burned. Always.

They were shoulder-to-shoulder now, with half their bodies touching, and a jolt of ecstasy caused the earth to move under him for a split second. Gellert leaned in closer, until the blond curls tickled his cheek, and whispered in his ear, "It always had to start with us. Isn't this what you wanted? Now you're free, and I, for one, can't wait to see just how far you're able to go."

Something was forced into Albus' hand before he could refuse, and then Gellert was pulling away again. This time, Albus let him go, fading into the darkness.

After several minutes, Albus tore his eyes away from the shadows to glance at the piece of paper he had been given. It was a bit worse for wear, crinkled oddly in a few places, but he unfolded it like a delicate treasure. In shaky, unsure scribbles were three figures, standing in front of the house they grew up in. The house he knew he would leave behind, just like everything else about this godforsaken place.

**~(X)~**

Looking back, he never should have trusted the smooth-talking, handsome young man who simply appeared one day in Godric's Hollow. Had Albus known what he was, what he would do...

No, all the hindsight in the world couldn't change what had transpired.

_No amount of rain can absolve me of my guilt_, he thought, lifting his eyes to the clouds as they started to weep, rain puddling over the freshly-dug grave.

The only thing left to do was to move forward, because no magic in the world could make time flow backwards. Slow, faltering steps led him away from the grave; leaving meant letting go, and he was not keen to do either.

_I will find you, Gellert Grindelwald, wherever you go, and I will stop you, whatever the cost._


	3. A Dog Off His Chain

**1959**

_Gellert smiled, popping a lemon sherbet in his mouth, as the pair of young men he was tailing slipped into the park. He lingered some distance away from them, to the point where their words were nothing more than a string of white-noise whispers, but there was a noticeable bite in their tone. The argument would heat up soon, so he took up post on a park bench to await the fireworks. It wasn't a particularly comfortable place to sit, but people tended to overlook the old man who spent too much time alone at the park feeding the birds._

_He had waited thirty years for this, a third of a lifetime. It was a long wait. That was the major drawback to his plan; you could turn a bird free, but you couldn't force it to fly. Albus was quite a rare specimen, and he took longer than expected to stretch his wings, but it had been worth the wait. Gellert had followed his cases from a distance. A well-known, well-liked detective with a penchant for solving the unsolvable. Albus kept busy, but so had he._

_Europe was quite the intriguing playground, with such a vast difference in cultures and abilities. Like in Germany, for example, where he had met a reluctant soldier who wanted to trade in his military life for the opportunity to pursue art. There was no denying that he was gifted, but Gellert felt, as did the man's father, that his true talents lay in politics. A few well-placed bribes, and the man was quickly blackballed from the art world with politics dangling before him like low-hanging fruit._

_The war that ensued was messy, but it sure was convenient. He could slip between countries undetected, and no one bothered to follow his trail. It made it a hell of a lot easier to fulfill his objectives with everyone's attention being drawn to the war-front. Ah, yes, those were good years. But Britain had beckoned to him, and Gellert knew it was time to heed her call. There, he found the Black boys._

_Gellert grinned as the argument finally erupted into shouting. It had taken longer than he figured to break, but, now that it had, the discord had a lovely ring to it. _

"_Why, Sirius? Please, enlighten me why I _can't_." _

_Just from the tone, Gellert was sure the younger brother was rolling his eyes._

"_Because it's _wrong_. You can see that, can't you? You, of all people?"_

"_Wrong?" Regulus scoffed. "Who's to say what's right or wrong?"_

"_The law, for one. If you get caught..."_

"_I won't get caught! Even if I did, Mother and Father would pay whatever the price is, and I'd get on with it."_

_Ah yes, the infallible Black logic. They were one of the largest crime syndicate families in the country, known both for their nefarious ventures and their uncanny ability to evade prosecution. They had fallen into money generations ago under somewhat suspicious circumstances. For all their hype, Gellert found them to be a mostly dull family, both in wit and intrigue._

"_You don't have to do this, Reggie. You can come live with me and—"_

"_With you? In that tiny dump you call a flat? And do what, sit around and mope and tinker all day like you do?"_

"_I don't _tinker,_ I _invent_. But that's not the point." _

_Gellert could hear the scowl in Sirius' voice, and he smiled. How he liked a man who took pride in his work._

"_Why are you even here, Sirius?"_

_The voices were growing softer, and Gellert had to strain to make them out. They were both hot-heads, but even they eventually ran out of enough steam to fuel their anger._

"_I don't want to see you get hurt, Reggie. This is a mistake."_

"_My name's Regulus. I'm not a little kid anymore. Besides, you made your choice. You walked away."_

_No, Sirius hadn't simply walked away from the Black family; he had strutted away leaving a wake of destruction that had taken months to clean up. From what Gellert was able to glean, the eldest Black boy had been born with too much conscience to go into the family business. He was a tinkerer by trade, a maverick with his hands who breathed new life into old inventions._

_So when he'd finally snapped under the pressure of his lineage, he didn't just meddle with the next robbery, he outright sabotaged it. It was the biggest heist of the year: a hit on a wealthy emigrant with more money than brains and shoddy security. It had been a perfectly calculated plan—with the exception of having overlooked one rather pissed-off Black heir._

_Gellert wished he had been there to see it, but it was years ago, and he was still abroad at the time. He imagined it was quite brilliant, though. The police descended on the house shortly after the would-be-burglars were inside, guns drawn, working off an anonymous tip. Knowing they were surrounded, the buffoons prepared for a firefight, only to find that their guns were inoperable._

_A couple of them lost their lives, and though Sirius showed remorse for their deaths, Gellert found it rather fitting. After all, Nature had a way of weeding out the incompetent._

_The brothers had dropped their voices again, so Gellert got up and quietly relocated to another bench where he could hear better._

"_I _will _do the heist," Regulus was saying, "and if you try to interfere again, I will remove you from the situation. As far as I'm concerned, you were dead to me the minute you turned your back on our family."_

_The voices stopped; silence reigned over the park. Once again, the older brother was defeated by the younger. It was the way every argument had ended since he started watching them, and each time Sirius was fool enough to try again. Gellert had come to the conclusion that older brothers, in general, were foolish creatures._

_He remained on the park bench long after he was sure the Black brothers had left—one to brood, the other to drink, as always. He replayed the argument in his mind. They were getting shorter, and he could feel Sirius' will bending. Too often now he sought comfort at the bottom of a bottle. If he should break, he would be useless. Gellert couldn't let that happen. It was time to make his move._

**~(X)~**

Thirty years. Had it really been so long? Albus had tracked him across Europe for a while, until World War II had heated up and the trail went cold. He wouldn't even have believed he was back if Grindelwald hadn't left him a calling card. But after thirty years? Why now?

Albus paused long enough to hold the door open for a woman who was exiting the police station. She offered a smile, and he tipped his hat in response before slipping through the glass doorway.

The station was animated with its usual bustle. The detectives here were fairly top-notch. Oh, sure, every now and then they got something wrong, and it would take a nudge or two or four in order to move them back in the right direction. But they normally had their hands full and, after all, they were only human.

"Good day, Albus," an elderly woman greeted him as he passed, lips pursed, handbag clutched tight to her lap.

"Afternoon, Mrs. Wordsworth."

He nodded his head curtly at her and shot a sympathetic smile at the officer taking her statement. She was a nice enough woman, though the death of her husband several years ago had certainly loosed a few seams in her mind. She was absolutely convinced that the neighborhood "hooligans," as she termed them, were stealing her brooches. It had been three weeks since the first complaint, and he wondered how much longer it would be before she realized that her new kitten had a preoccupation with all things shiny.

Albus weaved a path to the back of the large room, which was reserved for the public, and slid down a side hall that led to the constables' offices. No one moved to stop him or questioned his motives. He was, perhaps, becoming a bit too much of a regular occurrence there. He should diversify more. Maybe try London, though they were rather difficult to get on with, at times. After this case, of course.

Someone grabbed his arm, and when Albus turned he found himself looking down at the secretary, Ms. Sprout. She was a spitfire of a woman, like too much gunpowder packed into too small of a container just waiting to go off any minute. Though she practically ran the office on the administrative side, she received little credit for it. Albus always wondered, with mild intrigue, just how long the department would last should she ever wise up and decide to find a job where she was more appreciated.

"Hey, Al, I wouldn't go back there if I were you," she said with a smile and a wink. "She's as ornery as a mule today."

"Oh? That does sound terrifying, but I'm afraid this can't wait."

"All right, it's your funeral." Pomona shrugged and patted him lightly on the arm. "Don't say I didn't warn you, though."

Albus made his way to the large office in the very back. He knocked lightly on the door with his knuckle—once, three times, twice, in his normal pattern—and opened it without waiting for an invitation.

The woman standing behind the desk turned towards him as he entered, regarding him with hard, blue eyes and a scowl. It really was no wonder that half the department was afraid of her. She sure could put up a front when she wanted to.

"Oh no, not today. I have too much to do to entertain your silly notions." She shot out from behind the desk, waving her hands in a shooing motion. "Out! Out with you!"

"Well, Minerva, if you'd rather lock up an innocent boy than listen to what I have to say, I'll just be on my way."

"It's Detective Constable McGonagall, and I'll thank you to remember that."

"Sorry, I just assumed that we were on a first-name basis, with how often I'm in here cleaning up your messes."

Minerva fixed him in a threatening, hawkish stare, pressing her lips together so tight that they were little more than a thin line breaking up her face. It was the sort of look that would make any one of her staff wither, but he met her gaze and smiled. She knew he was right; he always was.

"You're here about the Black case?"

"Of course."

"Do you really think he's innocent, Albus?"

She sounded like a child looking for someone to validate her opinion, to give her permission to believe it. Her instincts had always proven to be keen; she should need no approval, least of all his. He nodded anyway, and her shoulders slumped forward slightly, relieved of that burden, at the very least.

"Albus?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

She tensed up again and snapped, "Mr. Dumbledore," and he grinned. She was so hopelessly predictable.

Minerva scrutinized him from head to toe, toe to head, and finally let her eyes linger on his hat.

"What are you wearing?"

"This?" Albus pulled the tweed cap off his head and balanced it on the tips of his fingers. "It's called a deerstalker. I thought it was rather charming."

"It's not. Chuck it in the bin and come with me. I'll not have you looking like an old fool if I'm going to stick my neck out for you. And, make no mistake, the _only_ reason I am permitting you to wear that hideous suit is because it would be indecent for me to suggest otherwise."

"What's wrong with my suit?"

Albus quite liked the brown-and-yellow plaid design. It was one of his favorites, in fact. He appreciated unique things, even if others did not.

"Really, Albus." Minerva huffed and stepped out the door.

He had no other choice, so he tossed his hat in the bin—there were plenty more where that came from—and followed the echo of clicking heels down the hall. They made their way to the other side of the building, to the holding cells where criminals were kept until they could be transferred. Only one cell was currently occupied.

Minerva motioned for the guard to leave, and he happily obliged. It was a routine that he was used to by now.

"You have fifteen minutes, Mr. Dumbledore. Not a second more than that."

The man in the cell was a mere ghost of the person he had been. He was backed into a corner, pressed against the wall as if he was trying to meld into it. His black hair was messy and limp, and a week's worth of stubble lined his jaw. The last time they met, he had been so very full of life, but now the gray eyes regarded him coldly, dully, and all the sheen had left them. It had only been six days since they fished Regulus Black's corpse out of the water, but some burdens were harder to carry than others.

"It seems that you've gotten yourself into a bit of a situation, Sirius," Albus whispered softly, sidling closer to the bars.

They had met years ago when Albus was called in to investigate a would-be heist that had gone terribly wrong. Two men were killed by the authorities, and no one mourned their passing because, they reasoned, they were on the wrong side of the law. No one except Sirius, anyway.

The thieves had drawn their guns but were unable to get off a single shot. Upon closer inspection, he had discovered a few small pieces missing in the machinery of the gun itself. Seemingly inconsequential pieces, easily overlooked, but, as it were, necessary in the gun's function. His official report said that the guns had jammed. Yes, all of them, all at the same time. Yes, he was well aware of the odds of that happening. Since then, he had used Sirius as an occasional consultant on cases that required his specific expertise.

"They think I killed him, Albus. They think I killed Regulus!" His voice trembled, oscillating between dejectedly soft to thundering like a madman. "_I did not kill my brother!_"

"I believe you."

"No, of course you don't. Nobody does. But I swear—" The words dangled there, severed mid-sentence, as he realized what had been said. Sirius stood tentatively, precariously wobbling on unstable legs, and stepped towards the bars. "You believe me?"

"I do. You may be hot-blooded, brash, oftentimes foolish, quick to act, slow to think, and altogether a perfect manifestation of teenage hormones, despite being of age now, but a murderer you are not."

Sirius scowled, watching him quietly for a minute.

"If that was supposed to be a compliment, you sure have a funny way of going about it."

"It wasn't a compliment, it was the truth. Maybe this will cheer you up: I'm sure I can have you out within a day. However, I need you to tell me everything that happened that night."

"That night..." He let the words trail off as his scowl deepened. "I asked him to meet me in the park. I thought...UGH! I was so stupid!"

He kicked at the bars, and the metal rung out angrily. Like a dog awaiting execution, he paced back and forth. Albus waited for him to find whatever words he was looking for.

"I wanted to meet him because I got wind that he was about to do something stupid. I thought maybe, you know...I thought I could talk him out of it." Sirius stopped and raised his eyes to meet Albus'. They sparkled once more—with regret, not happiness.

"Eighteen years, Albus. I spent _eighteen years_ looking out for him, doing my best to keep him out of trouble. Eighteen goddamned years." Sirius kicked the wall hard as he swiped the back of his hand across his eyes.

"We argued. Yes, I admit it. We fought like cats and dogs. Endlessly. Always. He was the perfect Black heir, and I was...well, not. But he was my brother, and I tried so damn hard to be the older brother he needed me to be. But I couldn't get him to listen, no matter what I did. I couldn't save him from our family."

"Some people don't want to be saved. I'm sure you tried your best. I'm an older brother myself, and I've come to the conclusion that younger brothers are rather foolish creatures."

"He said—" The words wobbled as Sirius fought to gain his composure, but it was obviously a losing battle. Despite his best efforts, his voice shuddered, his hands shook like a junkie, and he gnawed incessantly on his bottom lip. "He told me that I-I was...I was dead to him. I loved my brother, Albus. Whatever our differences, I loved him."

The tears flowed freely down Sirius' dirty face like a trail of absolution cutting through the grime. Albus felt regret gripping his own heart like a cold hand, constricting until he could barely breathe, icing his blood. The emotions were too familiar, too close. There was a lump in his throat and a pressure in his chest that threatened to suffocate him.

No, he couldn't become subject to such emotions. A professional did not let his own life impede the case. Albus swallowed hard, scattering the memories of a time he hoped to forget, and he cleared his throat.

"And after that?"

"After that..?"

Sirius' voice was distant, dreamy almost, and Albus knew he was losing the man to whatever memory had captured his attention.

"After that, I went to the pub."

"Which pub?"

"The Hogs Head, of course. Where else would I go?"

"And you drank?"

"No, I sat there and knitted a scarf. Of course I bloody drank!"

The door moaned, an eerie wail that reverberated around the empty room. Time was up, but that was fine. It was more than clear, as Sirius leaned against the wall and then slumped to the floor, that their conversation was over anyway.

"I presume you've got what you came for?" Minerva asked.

"I did. Thank you for your help, Mr. Black." Albus nodded towards the man, but he had already drifted off into some other world.

"It's always a pleasure to see you, Minerva," he quipped, sliding past her and through the open door.

"That's Detective Constable McGonagall!" she called after him, but it was too late to properly admonish him. Albus was already at the door to the station, pushing his way back out onto the street.

**~(X)~**

It was still early afternoon by the time Albus made his way into the Hogs Head—late enough to avoid the morning hangover crowd but early enough so as to not have to tolerate the usual riffraff that swarmed the establishment.

A man by the door, who seemed to be struggling to maintain a grasp on consciousness, grunted at him as he entered, and then rested his forehead back on the table and closed his eyes. The place was mostly empty, so Albus made his way to the bar and hoisted himself onto one of the bar stools.

"What are you doing here, Albus?"

He was glad to hear the voice, even when confronted with the scowl—and boy had he perfected that particular expression, even as a boy—and the sandpaper tone.

"An old man can't simply visit his younger brother on occasion?"

Aberforth grunted, spinning a glass in his hand as he wiped it dry.

"If that's all you want, you know where the door is, and you can just see yourself right back out of it."

"What if I said I wanted a drink?"

"You don't drink. In fact, if I recall, you said that this place was a 'disgusting breeding ground for disease and degenerates' and that my job was nothing more than 'serving poison to people dumb enough to drink it' and that 'even a goat could do it.' Which I suppose is lucky for me since I have a brain the size of a goat's."

"I don't recall ever saying that last part."

"It was implied."

Aberforth refused to look at him, and, instead, took to scrubbing his side of the counter furiously with a rag.

"Well, you started it. What was it that you said you thought of my detective work?"

"Hogswallop. I said it was hogswallop."

"Ah, yes, that's right. You always had such an impressive vocabulary."

Aberforth paused, and for a moment their eyes locked. Albus grappled with his guilt. He hadn't come in intending to insult his brother, nor did he believe that had been Aberforth's initial intention, either. They simply brought out the worst in each other. Some things never changed.

"Tell me, Albus, what is it you want?"

"I'm sure you've heard about the incident with the Blacks?"

"I work in a pub. What do you think?"

"Of course. Sirius said he came in here that night. I was wondering if he was drinking?"

"Obviously he was drinking. You're the only person ever comes in here without ordering anything. I've got a business to run, y'know."

He slammed down the glass he had been drying, and it clunked loudly against the wood.

"I s'pose what you meant to say was how drunk was he. He had a few...and then a couple more. But he wasn't wasted or nothing. Had his wits about him when he left."

"Do you know what time that was?"

"I'm a bartender, not a babysitter. I didn't look at the clock."

"Of course. My apologies."

Their eyes met again, but, despite his efforts, Albus was unable to read what his brother was thinking. It was infuriating—maddening!—to think that he was so stumped by him, of all people.

"Albus, either order something or get out."

When Aberforth spoke, the words weren't terse or strained, they were just weary. He bore the remnants of time as wrinkles lining his face, and his hair was peppered gray with memories. When had they gotten so old? So much time had passed, and yet they were the same as they had always been. Maybe this was simply the way it would always be.

"You know what I could really go for right now?" Albus ran his fingers through his beard as he spoke. "A glass of orange pop would do just fine."

"This is a _pub_. Does it look like I carry orange pop?"

"Well, I didn't think it would hurt to ask."

Aberforth tsked, throwing his arms up in defeat. He tossed his rag aside and turned away.

"I'll check the back," he called over his shoulder as he slipped through a doorway, the words coming out like a long, exasperated sigh. He emerged a few minutes later with a single bottle in his hands, clear glass with orange liquid sloshing around inside of it.

"Lord knows how it got there, but I've got one. Just one, so drink it and leave. And I'm charging you double for the hassle."

Albus gladly paid the money and raised the bottle to his lips to hide his smile. He watched his younger brother closely as he bustled around the bar, stopping every now and then to address a customer. He was both good at his job and took pride in it. They were two admirable enough traits, he supposed.

He knew it wasn't merely by happenstance that Aberforth carried what had been his favorite drink since childhood. Maybe, just maybe, there was hope for them yet. Maybe _some_ things could change, even after all these years. It was one dream that Albus wasn't quite ready to give up on.

**~(X)~**

"Remind me again why I should help ya, considerin' that ya ruined my marriage?"

The undertaker was busy rearranging his desk for the second time since Albus had arrived, placing and replacing objects in a desperate struggle to get things right. It was a lousy excuse for not paying him any mind, and Albus refused to be dismissed so easily.

"What did I do? I merely informed you that your wife was being unfaithful."

"Yeah, which ended my marriage."

He shook the stapler he was holding at Albus. When he realized, he returned it to the proper place on his desk.

"I apologize, Argus. Next time, I won't mention your wife's infidelity."

The undertaker scrutinized him carefully, eyes nearly disappearing beneath the creases that formed when he scowled. This was a man who was born for his career, both in appearance and personality. He was older, with a bald patch at the center of his head and long, greasy hair hanging limply down to his shoulders. When he smiled, which he did infrequently, it was always with an air of malice, revealing crooked, yellow teeth. There was nothing he enjoyed more than gutting a corpse, relieving a man of his innards, and transforming him into a life-like masterpiece. Despite the grotesque fascination, Albus could appreciate a man who took pride in his craft.

"Nah, I s'pose I can forgive ya this time, Albus. Did me a favor, anyway, ya did. That bitch was nothin' but an old nag. Let her keep him. He'll be lookin' like me before too long with her ridin' him all day with chores."

He cackled, a sound like two rocks scraping together. The thought lit a fire in his eyes that caused them to twinkle with delight.

"Yes, well, about the body...?"

"Ah yeah, about that. Come on, then."

Albus followed him down a narrow, dimly-lit hall, the opposite direction of the chapel, where the funerals were held. They passed the display room on the left, with sample caskets lining the far wall so the bereaved could easily choose the best way to lay their loved one to rest. Across the hall from it, to his right, Albus peaked into the arrangement room, a brief oasis of bright, yellow paint and artistic renditions of flowers in the otherwise grim building. The morgue was at the very end of the hall, and Argus threw the door wide open and held it for him to pass.

"Have you already started the preparations, then, Argus?"

"Hm?" The undertaker followed his gaze to the white sheet on the table. "Oh! Oh, yes. I was workin' on it when ya came in. Quite a beauty, this one. Good lookin' fella. Death by drownin', so looks real pretty still."

As he pulled the white sheet back, Albus had to admit that the boy was, indeed, a wonderful testament to the beauty of youth, even with the glow of death lighting his face in an unnatural way. His black hair was combed into a bushy mane framing his face, a stark contrast against his pallid features.

"You said death by drowning?" Albus asked, trailing his eyes from the clean-shaven, boyish face, down along the incision mark that divided the body in half, all the way to where the sheet covered his lower extremities.

"Aye, that's what the coroner said. That's the official cause of death."

"Then why is Sirius currently sitting in prison?"

"Dunno. Guess they figure he drowned him."

"Drowned him? No, no, that's not right. Look at this body."

"Yeah, I know. Brilliant, isn't it? That's some of my best stitch work there, I'm sure of it."

"What? No. I mean it's too clean. There are no ligature marks, no bruises, no cuts or gashes of any kind." Albus lifted a hand and examined the nails closely. "Have you cleaned these?"

"Nah, not yet."

"There's no skin under the nails. There's no sign of a struggle at all. If your head was being held under water, wouldn't you fight back?"

"I reckon so. But not if I was stone-cold drunk, I wouldn't."

"Drunk?"

"Aye. Didn't ya read the coroner's report before comin' down here? You're really slippin', Albus."

"There is no coroner's report, Argus. Not yet, at least."

"Yeah, well, that doesn't surprise me none. Coroner ruled it an accident. He was drunk outta his mind. Probably passed out, and fell in the river, and didn't have enough sense to come up for air. But the Blacks—Walburga and Orion—they're not too keen on their oldest son. Can't hardly blame them, the troublemaker he is. I'm surprised it's taken this long for him to get himself locked up. They're convinced he's guilty. Of what, I dunno. I think they just wanna see him squirm."

"Thank you, Argus. I think I have everything I need here. As repayment for this favor, I'll give you a tip: fire your apprentice."

"What? My apprentice?"

"Judging by his body language," Albus swept the cover back over Regulus' face as he spoke, "he's sleeping with your daughter. I passed them on my way in."

"What? That's impossible! They hate each other." Argus chuckled and waved his hand as if trying to shoo the thought away. "I see them arguing all the time."

"I wasn't wrong about your wife, was I?"

Argus suddenly sobered up, his features darkening like a storm was brewing somewhere behind his pale eyes.

"You don't really think...I mean, you can't believe that...I'm gonna kill him! Hangin's too good for him! I'll string him up and quarter him! Maybe cut off his dangly bits. That'll show him, sleeping with my daughter."

Argus stormed out of the room, still grumbling to himself about his murderous intentions. Albus wasn't quite sure whether he should be concerned or not. Ultimately, he was already on a case, so he slipped down the hallway and headed to the front door.

"Aye! Albus!" Argus suddenly appeared down the hall, yanking his apprentice along by his ear. The poor boy's face was turning red, but the undertaker didn't seem like he was about to give up his hold any time soon. "Ya really wanna repay me for the favor? Don't come back for a good, long while."

"I sure hope so, Mr. Filch. I sure hope so. Good day."

It was time to turn an innocent man free.

**~(X)~**

Albus did his best to ignore the screams of frolicking children, the indignant coos of birds being chased from their roosts, and the bustle of the midday park. He had an inexplicable urge to watch them, people of all ages just enjoying life. It was beautiful in its absurdity and quite fascinating. But that wasn't why he was there.

The third park bench he checked was the one he was looking for. Always in threes, like it was some magic number. He traced a finger gingerly over the symbol that was scratched into the wood: first the triangle, then the circle inside it, then the line bisecting them down the center.

Albus fished around in his pocket and extricated a small, rectangular card. It had been tucked under his door, which meant Gellert had been close. The thought filled him with both elation and anger, and the realization of the former only made him all the more infuriated. On the front of the card was the same symbol—triangle, circle, line—and on the back, in familiar, scrawling script, were two words: _He's innocent._

Because he didn't know what else to do, Albus took a seat on the bench and simply watched people, animals, plants—life, in all of its imperfections—pass him by. Gellert had sat in the same spot, though he couldn't venture to guess how much time had passed between them. He had watched all those things, too, but their intents were different—always different.

Albus had known it had to be the park. Where else could a middle-aged man sit and watch and never be suspected of anything? It was the place Sirius admitted to confronting his younger brother. It was the same place Regulus must have been pushed in the river, drunk beyond reason and unable to fend for himself, judging by the location of where he was fished out.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but at some point in the afternoon, Minerva appeared before him, clearing her throat to draw his attention.

"May I?" she asked, motioning to the spot beside him.

"Please." He waved a hand as an open invitation.

"I thought you'd like to know that Sirius has been released. Thanks to your prodding, the coroner's report magically showed up on my desk. Days late, but it's a start."

"I imagine the Blacks aren't particularly happy."

"No, I imagine they're not, but I didn't work my butt off to get where I am now, as a woman, no less, to simply be a lap dog for some rich family who believes they're above the law."

Albus laughed; Minerva smiled. It accentuated the lines at the edges of her eyes and made them glow. It was lovely, and she did it all too infrequently since losing her husband a few years back due to a poisonous spider bite. He reached a hand into his coat and pulled out a small bag of candies.

"Lemon sherbet?" He held the bag out to her, but she waved it away. With a shrug, he grabbed one and tossed it in his mouth.

"I just came to say thank you, Albus, for sticking your abnormally large nose into my business, yet again. I suppose the outcome speaks for itself, even if you often go about it in the wrong way."

"Albus?"

"Just this once."

"You're welcome, Minerva."

She smiled and patted his arm gently before standing to go. Without another word, she merged into the other park-goers and he quickly lost sight of her.

Before too long, Albus was joined again, only this time he wasn't asked for permission. The young man simply plopped down on the bench beside him, crossing one leg over the other and entwining his fingers around his knee.

"I suppose I should thank you," he said, looking around the park as he spoke. "McGonagall told me that it was because of you that she was able to get the go-ahead to release me."

"Nonsense. I hardly did anything at all."

"Well, I believe that. But thank you anyway."

Albus was relieved to see him smile again, the mischievous sort that forced a devilish glint into his eyes. Though still being pale and visibly shaken, he was looking better. He smelled better, at least, and had shaved and combed his hair. It was a work in progress, like most things in life.

"You should try not to draw too much attention to yourself for a while."

"You mean because of Mother and Father? Oh, they're furious. I've had the help spying on them for years now. Wasn't hard to convince them to, either. Everyone hates the old fools."

"What will you do now?"

"Now? Well, I'm going to see that my brother gets the funeral he deserves. Then I suppose I'll have to get a new flat. Oh, and I've got this idea I've been playing with for a while. It's some modifications for a motorbike. Figure now's as good a time as any to see if I can make them work."

"Sounds like you have things figured out."

"No, I have no idea what I'm doing anymore. But I suppose I'll just make it up as I go. It's as good a plan as any."

"That it is. Take care of yourself, Sirius."

Sirius smiled, sadly, almost, like he was fighting against words that were vying to break free. He successfully restrained them, though, and quietly walked away. Albus was alone, again, which suited him fine. He fingered the card in his pocket absentmindedly, listening for the soft twang it made as he strummed it off his thumb over and over again.

Thirty years had passed. Thirty long years. Albus had been convinced that he would be able to face Gellert when the time came, but now he wasn't so certain. The one thing he was sure of was that this was only the beginning.

**Author's Note:** Yeah, so, Argus' accent kind of stumped me. I still don't have it quite where I want it, so I might have to tweak it more. Any suggestions would be lovely. :) Reviews are loved and appreciated! A lot of work has gone into this thus far, so any feedback is lovely, especially if you point out mistakes that I may have made.


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